


The Next Best Thing to an Angel

by Sunchales



Category: LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: Depression, Dream Sex, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-25 23:25:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3828772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunchales/pseuds/Sunchales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on THE SHEIK'S SINFUL SEDUCTION by Dani Collins (Mills and Boon):</p><p>Ruled by duty... A king amongst men, Nyarlathotep cannot allow emotion to colour his judgement. But his control is tested by the feisty Randolph Carter... Nyarlathotep must have him. Driven by desire... Innocent Randolph Carter tries to resist Nyarlathotep's seduction -- he knows that he can never marry him. But under the blistering sun an incendiary thirst awakes, and one incredible night results in a very lasting consequence.</p><p>SEVEN SEXY SINS -- The true taste of temptation!</p><p>Or:</p><p>Some gods let you forget them after you see them. Nyarlathotep is not so merciful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Best Thing to an Angel

**Author's Note:**

> H. P. Lovecraft’s fiction, on which this story is based, is in the public domain, at least in the United States and the European Union. 
> 
> Before reading this fic, know that there are two ways to view Randolph Carter’s character arc: one, that it ends with _The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath_ and that “The Silver Key” and its sequel are an alternate timeline, and two, that “The Silver Key” and “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” follow _The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath_ directly and are part of the same canon. I take the latter view, but assume that the former is true in this case. Also, Nyarlathotep is probably not actually male; that’s just how Carter perceives the character--and Carter does a piss-poor job of "resisting" Nyarlathotep, although he does know he shouldn't be doing what he ends up doing.
> 
> The “Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings” tag carries much greater weight here than it does on my other works published on AO3 thus far. This story does not contain any sort of graphic violence or horrific abuse, but the resolution hinges on something that, had I warned for it, would have spoiled the ending. Let’s just say that it subverts both the happy tone of the Mills and Boon summary and the moral of _The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath_ (even though _Dream-Quest_ ’s moral is a fine one).
> 
> Lastly, the title is taken from a line in “Tonight is What It Means to Be Young,” written by Jim Steinman for the 1986 movie _Streets of Fire_.

The sun began to set over Randolph Carter’s Boston neighborhood, and the adventurer sat on a high brick wall that overlooked a garden bursting with bluebells and fairy candles but looked up to a committee of spires and steeples. There, he contemplated the results of his latest and most ambitious sojourn through the lands of Dream and how they compared to his expeditions on Earth. He did not have to be told that few earthly journeys could compete with those taken on the astral plane, but this most recent example of the latter differed from its predecessors in more ways than length and degree of triumph. Before he mounted the shantak that nearly flung him into the center of the universe, his encounter with the Overlord of the Dreamlands forced him to confront a singularly disturbing element of his character, an element he had long suspected lay dormant within him but refused to countenance whenever it surfaced. In fact, thinking of it vitiated the experience of watching twilight fall upon the tall towers, so he turned around, jumped off the brick wall, and walked back to his house. 

He spent the next several hours variously meditating, reading, and eating, and when he settled into bed that night with his cat curled up beside his pillow, he dwelt upon that which troubled him the most. His imagination conjured the image of the young pharaoh who had mocked him and attempted to send him to a soul-shattering death. The picture of this personification of evil ought to have filled him with revulsion at best and trauma at worst, and yet he wished to retain it in his mind for ever. 

As far as he could recall, the men whose caresses he had submitted to were like him in some way: Novanglian, or artistic, or mystical, or permanently dissatisfied. Neither the excitement of what little lust festered inside him nor the freeing of it upon some other and invariably more enthusiastic man's body could provide the lasting fulfillment he sought. Trembling beneath Harley Warren's capable, domineering hands usually brought pleasure to Carter, but trying to summon and converse with the dead always proved more exciting. Richard Pickman's comparatively more exotic methods and tastes provided greater thrills--Carter found few qualities as attractive as unpredictability--but after a while, Carter's own conservatism outed, and Pickman physically became the flesh-loving, bestial creature Carter had frequently worried he was. And as for those muscular supernatural detectives...well, Carter's face burned when he thought of them as such, but they were effectively his tricks, albeit longer-lasting ones than most men who merited that term. 

But the Overlord of the Dreamlands lit a more ardent fire in his loins than any man he had ever met. The lissome shape of the dark god haunted Carter’s dreams and waking thoughts alike. That diabolical creature's slender figure and boyish face would have made Carter feel like a pederast had the Pharaoh not been so obviously ancient--no, _beyond_ ancient. His appearance and habitat savored of an empire older than the hoariest constructs of man, the thought of which made Carter shiver with pleasure. 

What separated Nyarlathotep most from the names Carter had inscribed in his little red book was, of course, his distance from mankind. A mortal man's body could not glow in the lights of Heaven, nor could his voice, no matter how well trained, carry with it the sweetly poisonous winds of unseen galaxies. Sighing, Carter resigned himself to the knowledge that the thought of this delectable messenger would torment him for the rest of his days unless he fulfilled his lust, and he therefore resolved to take that course of action. 

Before embarking on his quest, Carter took a precaution vital to those who would search for Nyarlathotep willingly and retain their sanity. The following evening, he rode a bus to mist-enveloped Kingsport, where he departed for the cliffs by the sea and prayed to Nodens, the guardian of his home environs. Though the gentle god of the sullen North Atlantic could not be accurately described as a particular friend of mankind, his enmity toward the Crawling Chaos and his vigilance over the region dearest to Carter’s heart made petitioning him worthwhile, in Carter’s opinion. On his way down, he spoke with Granny Orne and bargained his way into the possession of a silver amulet that she swore up and down would protect him from being harmed and, if nothing else, jar him awake should he find his soul endangered. 

Upon his return to Boston, he chided himself mentally for partaking in the unfounded superstitions of his forefathers, but he exterminated the thought by reminding himself that he once evaded a horrible death by invoking his beloved homeland. When night descended upon the town, Carter crawled into bed clutching his amulet to his chest. His mind’s eye focused on the image of the incomparably lovely manifestation of the universe’s wickedness. 

Once asleep, he discovered himself in the darkness of a great stone temple that, if the aridity were any indication, was bounded by desert. The lit torch that his dream had thoughtfully provided him illuminated the corridors, and as he trod the worn stone paths, he noticed hieroglyphs depicting what he could only assume were representations of sacrifice, for the sheer number of carvings of sharp-fanged reptilians lining the walls could point to nothing else. He trudged up the slanting halls, wiping the sweat from his brow much of the while, until he saw a gleaming white light shine from the end of a doorway. 

Shielding his eyes with his free hand, Carter stepped into the light and had no choice but to extinguish and drop his torch. In front of him spanned what would otherwise have been a featureless white void, save for the gold-backed couch of red velvet that rested in the center…and the shimmering god who stood before it and smiled. 

The Overlord of the Dreamlands sidled up to him. Carter took in every aspect of the pharaoh-like god’s perfection. His stygian eyes glowed with sin; his frame bore the muscles of a lovely gymnast; the cut of his iridescent tunic revealed his slender legs. Carter opened his mouth to speak, but the god stretched out his clawed finger and nicked the man’s lips. 

Though Nyarlathotep’s manifestation was as dark, slender, and youthful as before, a hint of menace slithered beneath the lush tones of his voice: 

“What has occasioned your return, Randolph Carter? Has your arduous sojourn in these lands taught you nothing? Fortune aided you in your previous encounter with me, but I assure you that your escape may not be effected so easily a second time. If you have come to conquer my domain, then I will laugh with the force of a thousand thousand gales.” 

Carter stilled himself. He knew that he was the only man to survive a complete journey through the Dreamlands _and_ a previous encounter with Nyarlathotep. His will, when confronted with cosmic danger, proved to be made of iron. The love of his home town coursed so strongly through his being that the lure and treachery of the unfamiliar would fail to best him. 

And yet, he now fell to his knees. “I have come not to subdue you but to submit to your infinite lust, O Lord of Dreams.” 

The humanoid god pressed an index finger to his chin. A grin flashed briefly across his face and disappeared nearly as instantly. 

“You demonstrate greater powers of perception than I thought possible in a mere mortal. I have been waiting for you. Come with me, and I will eagerly take what you desire to give--and perhaps more.” 

On the red velvet couch that served as the centerpiece of Nyarlathotep’s private chamber, Carter indeed found that the pleasures he enjoyed exceeded his expectations. No physical precautions of the sort that sex on the mortal plane required had been necessary--in fact, none of the lore he had read spoke of the Crawling Chaos impregnating humans, strangely enough--and the messenger of Azathoth proved himself well versed in the arts of libidinal satisfaction. The variety of apparatuses that the god surely must have both possessed and manipulated (at the same time, in many cases) staggered Carter’s imagination. But Carter would have to hypothesize about the specific logistics of Nyarlathotep’s mating career with other intelligences later. The licking, the sucking, the biting, and all other techniques that he exchanged with his vastly superior bedfellow commanded his full attention. 

When his hunger at last was satiated, Carter steeled himself against falling into a deeper level of slumber, for Nyarlathotep lay beside him and was capable of anything. A quick glance to the side revealed that the god had himself taken to sleeping, so Carter rose from the couch and crept through the void and into the dark tunnel that had led him to the seat of delights. 

After braving the interior of the temple, Carter emerged in his bedchamber once more, and all seemed blessedly normal. 

This respite lasted briefly, for as the days wore on, Carter felt invisible knives stabbing at his flesh and heard the howling of ifrits inside his head. The golden sunsets over Boston began to pale; the autumn breezes roared like flesh-nipping winter gales; the flower gardens crawled with snails and worms. Even Carter’s beloved black cat started to regard him with less affection than usual. 

Worst of all, the dreams in which he indulged his whims like a mighty sorcerer began to assume wills of their own. When he commanded wood sprites to invite him to their picnics, they vanished before his eyes. When he approached the guardian at the gate of the undersea kingdom, the scaly sentry denied him entry. When he tried to speak to a ghoul, the creature would fling offal at him and then scamper off. 

Finally, Carter rode the bus to Kingsport once more, where he visited Granny Orne’s cottage and asked for a refund of the amulet she had sold him. Carter insisted that its vaunted protective properties failed, for his dream of Nyarlathotep robbed him of the joy he thought he had learned to rediscover. 

“Nay, Randolph Carter,” she croaked in response. “‘Twas foulness and misery _during_ the amulet guarded you from, not foulness and misery _after_.” 

Carter wished to scream in rage, but he knew better than to forget his gentlemanly disposition, especially in the presence of an aged woman. He bid her a somber goodbye and slunk off to the seaside. 

Amulet in hand, Carter knelt down alone on the dunes. 

“Great God Nodens, why have you forsaken me?” 

The waves lapped and broke over one another, but no god’s voice did they carry. 

And no one heard Carter’s cry of anguish as he ran and then flung himself into the primal abode of mystery, where Nodens always speaks if only mortals can hear him. 

Somewhere in the Dreamlands, Nyarlathotep smiled.


End file.
